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Monthly Archives: December 2002

New Year’s greetings from the Lower East Side. Today, we present the second installment of the LS.com LES Awards for 2002, following yesterday’s awarding of the Food and Drink trophies. Time’s a-wasting for 2002, so let’s get right to it.

### THE NEIGHBORHOOD ###

Three Big New Things in the Neighborhood, 2002
1. V Train This generally useless appendage of the subway system goes all the way to 2nd Ave. and Allen Street, making its empty cars the ideal LES commuter express. 2. W Hotel Construction continues on the 18-story behemoth across the street from my apartment on Rivington (seen at right as it looked in June). At least I can see where I live from anywhere below 14th now. 3. Sunshine Cinema The LES new movie house instantly made the cramped, small screens of the Angelika obsolete, even if they did run Y Tu Mama Tambien for 38 consecutive weeks.

Strangest Daily Experience, Rivington Street Edition
So heres the deal with the new Lower East Side W Hotel, told to me by an insider. Apparently, Starwood (the parent company) doesnt actually own the structure thats going up in the heart of the LES. The plan is that, once this massive structure is complete, the developer (one “Downtown LLC” by name) will go “bankrupt” and Starwood will “just happen” to purchase the property. As a result, the place is being built with non-union labor. Sub-result: Every morning this year, I’ve stepped outside to find (a) a group of striking laborers; and (b) their 25 foot inflatable rat looming over me.

Three LES Secrets You Probably Already Know
1. The Alife Sneaker Store on Rivington Will the era of ooh-we’re-cool-no-sign-out-front come to an end in 2003?2. The Secret Phone Number to Milk and Honey Okay, we know its posted on Craigs List at least twice a week, but it still helps us feel in-the-know3. The signless location of the LES’ hippest new spot, Adult Space… You do know this one, right?

The George Orwell Award for Information Non-Transparency

The MTA closed down the north side of the Delancey Street station last winter and put up a sign: CLOSED UNTIL 5/24/02. It’s a royal pain in the ass to cross the busy traffic of Delancey to use the station, but so be it. May 24 came and went and the barricades stayed. Soon we noticed the sign had been changed to read: CLOSED UNTIL 9/15/02. Come mid-September, and one day the signs say: CLOSED UNTIL 10/28/02. Would you believe theyve changed the signs twice more since then? We tip our cap to the unknown graffiti artist who took pen to sign a few months back and scrawled LIARS!!

Your Friends and Neighbors Award

Three unusual weblogs, each apparently run from the LES [via nycbloggers]1. Cosmic Rust… “The latest and greatest news from the world of Transformers”2. Story Poems… “Story Poems from the Lower East Side”3. France Watch… “Spotlight on French Extremism”

Most Awe-Inspiring Natural Phenomenon
Eldridge Street Hot Springs… On the first snowy day of the season, we were walking down Rivington when we chanced upon what appeared to be a steam vent. Approaching it, we realized it was a large pool of melted water, warmed by pipes running just under the sidewalk, producing copious amounts of steam. Now, on every wet or snowy day, we pause to admire nature’s wonder on the northeast corner of Eldridge and Rivington. John Muir would be proud.

LES Throwbacks Not To Lose
1. The Matzo Factory Walk past and check out the matzo coming off the conveyor belt, and the old Jewish men packaging it up. Better than fresh donuts at Krispy Kreme (Rivington @ Suffolk/Clinton) 2. Economy Candy A bona fide tourist attraction, this old school candy store sells in bulk. A must-see. (Rivington @ Ludlow/Essex) 3. The Kosher Wine Mural on the wall above Essex and Rivington . Lord, dont let them replace it with a Miss Sixty billboard

Alarming Things Seen in NYC, 2002 Edition
1. Growing Tourist Influx to the LES, drawn by the Tenement Museum and miscellaneous foreign guidebooks, threatens our sanity 2. Imminent Smoking Ban threatens that smokey, smoked-up aroma of an evening out. Another brick in the wall… and we don’t even smoke 3. Sale of the New York Press, our favorite weekly read, and the imminent firing of editor John Strausbaugh threatens to turn NYCs best open forum for no-holds-barred writing (sorry, Craigs List) into just another boring weekly paper

Great Things Seen in NYC, 2002 Edition
1. The Pillars of Light(seen from my roof, right)2.Pact reached to preserve community gardens3.Mark Green walking down 43rd Street this fall, still with that shit-eating grin on his face

Bodega Name We Liked So Much We Almost Named This Website After It The Neon Food Corp. (Ludlow @ Rivington/Delancey)

Best Moment of Pure Poetic Justice
Standing on our roof with a friend looking down on Rivington, we’re talking about the Mexican restaurant across the street. “The only person I know who’s gone there got food poisoning,” he says. Right then, an ambulance pulls up in front of the place and two paramedics rush in.

Three Things We’d Like to See on the LES in 2003
1. Whole Foods buys the lease on Essex Market, opens giant LES Food Emporium 2. ‘Elita’ Neighborhood (the area around Happy Ending) stays off mainstream media radar so we can find a nice apartment there3. After endless scouring of Siglo XX and Las Venus, I finally find the perfect coffee table for my apartment

Three Things We’ll Probably See Instead
1. First LES Starbucks (and/or First LES Pret)2. New York Times writes breathless article on Elita3. Me still using the same damn gray plastic coffee table

Welcome, one and all, to the year-end gala at the Web Presence. For your digestive pleasure, we’ve compiled our Best of the Lower East Side Awards for 2002 in two batches, served hot today and tomorrow. For the purposes of this little production, the LES is casually defined as “the area near my apartment” (on Rivington @ Ludlow/Essex) essentially comprising the traditional LES plus the bottom of the East Village and the fringes of NoLiTa and Chinatown.

Three Great Things about Lil Frankies Pizza, The Best Thing To Happen to the LES Cuisine Scene in 2002
1. The back room. Demand to sit there2. Autographed photograph in bathroom: To Lil Frankies, the best pizza! Yours, Hollywood Hulk Hogan 3. They deliver to Rivington Street

Good LES Brunch Place Now So Overrun That It Makes Queuing at Habana Actually Seem Like A Viable OptionClinton Street Baking Co. Repent, repent and do brunch on a weekday, when nobodys there. (Clinton @ Houston/Stanton)

Good LES Brunch Places Where You Can Actually Get a Table1. Rivington 99 . Gods gift to hangovers. N.B. Currently closed for renovations (Rivington @ Ludlow) 2. Good World As mellow at noon as it is untenable at midnight (Orchard @ Canal) 3. Rialto Grilled corn nearly as good as Habana with none of the crowds (Elizabeth @ Houston/Prince)

Three Low-Key Places on Clinton Street We Like1. Punch and Judy Order the Lobster Club (Clinton @ Houston/Stanton) 2. 1492 For the back garden in summer (Clinton @ Stanton/Rivington) 3. WD-50 Well, low-key until it opens (Clinton@ Stanton/Rivington)

Botched Opening of Year, Runner UpSmith… Brian McNally opens a new joint on a block replete with culinary success stories (Prune and The Tasting Room) to fanfare, feuds with partner, tries to close it down after only a few months, partner refuses, McNally leaves, partner closes back dining room for awhile, changes name and menu to overpriced comfort food, continues apace. We stopped in last week… The mood? “Death-like” isn’t the right word, but it’s the first that comes to mind. (First St. @ 1st/2nd Aves.)

Botched Opening of YearTenement… Planned all the press notices for mid-November, finally opened the doors in early December, fucked with us on the reservation line, then decided to close down until after New Years. Ingenious way of building buzz by reducing supply? (Ludlow @ Stanton/Rivington)

Best LES Moment Like Youd See On A Reality TV Show
Just yesterday, were cruising down Rivington Street with MOP. We pass Teany, the trendy teashop. Who should MOP spot sitting on the stoop chatting it up keeping it real? The proprietor himself: Moby. We genuflect.

### DRINK ###

Bars that Were Cool 5 Years Ago And Now Must Be Avoided At All Costs on Friday and Saturday Nights if You Value Your Sanity
1. Kush (Orchard @ Houston/Stanton)2. Rivertown Lounge (Orchard @ Houston/Stanton)3. Lansky Lounge (Norfolk @ Rivington/Delancey)

Saddest Death Knell for a Bar We Used To LoveLotus ClubKen spots a rat sitting comfortably on the shelf, then watches it scurry behind a toaster oven. With it went our patronage. (Stanton @ Clinton)

Would You Upper East Siders Kindly Stay There, Please? AwardGatsby’s… The horrific Spring Street drinking establishment that consistently garners half a dozen hits a month for this website since we trashed it back in June.

Obligatory Bar Praise, a.k.a. “Thanks for All the Free Drinks!”Grace… It’s in Tribeca, but we love the barkeep, and JVG’s hosting the 10th annual NBNYE there tonight. See you there!

Finishing up our Christmas shopping yesterday, we stopped by Avenue B’s TKNY, the coolest retail experience available today in Manhattan. A micro-boutique that’s more museum of advanced technology than actual store (many products, including a portable device we wanted to buy that turns any surface into a speaker, are out of stock), TKNY stocks gadgets and doodads (many from Japan) that are just slightly ahead of the curve. One that caught our eye: the High Speed Condom, which promises to reduce the “30 to 40 seconds the average condom takes to unroll” to a more pleasurable three seconds. The secret, it seems, is in the packaging. Stop by the store for a demo on the anatomically accurate display case.
· The High Speed Condom [compact-impact.com]
· Compact-Impact Christmas Gifts 2002 [compact-impact.com]
· TKNY [tkny.com]

Congratulations to DC herself and all the LS.com chums at Darrah Carr Dance, who reports: “Darrah Carr Dance just pulled the biggest coup in recent modern dance history — beating out a mortgage company and a fine shoe store to sign a lease on an adorable (and affordable) storefront rehearsal space in Williamsburg!!! We are thrilled and giddy.” So are we. Always.

Back from Palm Beach. An entirely odd place captured well by Simon Doonan in the Observer a few weeks back:

Though formerly very Gay 90s (all the men were gay and all the women were 90), the median age is now creeping downwards, and New Yorkers of all persuasions who can no longer cope with the raucous sleaze of Miami Beach are calling Sothebys realtor du jour Alan Stenberg and snapping up jolie-laide 70s condos in the SoSlo area (South of Sloanes curve), then filling them with bargain furniture from the incredible antique stores in West Palm Beach.

I’m heading southon business until the end of the week to a scary place with no Internet access. But we’ll pretend it’s tomorrow and direct you to check out Gawker with all due speed. It’s the latest fruition of Nick‘s Thin Media concept. I’ve watched Gawker in beta this week and already become addicted. It’s Romenesko for everyone who cares more about New York City doings & gossip than media doings & gossip (though Gawker’s got its share of that, too). Full launch is set for Wednesday. Hell, Jeff Jarvis has already given it his thumbs up. This will be big.
· Gawker [gawker.com]
· What is Gawker? [capitalinflux.com]
· On Gawker [buzzmachine.com]